Powerlifter Gert Koovit says switching to a vegan diet nine years ago solved his joint pain and health problems, adding his recovery has improved significantly.
Koovit, who grew up with six brothers and a sister, all fed on good countryside fare, said his wife suggested make the change. He now eats 180–240 grams of protein a day, but plant-derived, something which is viable nowadays without getting boared.
“There were six boys and one girl of us. We usually went through eight liters of milk a day, and everything else that goes with it,” he said.
“I’m fully vegan, but that doesn’t mean I only eat onions and potatoes. AS I’m a powerlifter, I need to be heavy. There’s a very wide choice of vegan food. My daily protein intake is between 180 and 240 grams. On top of that comes about three times as much in carbohydrates — oatmeal, rice, potato and the rest. For me it’s very important to get a lot of energy from food and for my weight number to be high,” Koovit said.
His wife had been vegan for longer. “I reached a point in my sport where my joints started hurting and I felt I’d taken my body so far that if I pushed a little more, health problems would start. That was nine years ago. My wife then very cleverly suggested I try vegan products. When I get stuck with something, my dear wife comes up with a solution — without her I probably wouldn’t be here,” Koovit explained.
Pretty much every foodstuff has a vegan alternative, he noted. “In my case, it was that after four days of eating vegan food, I realized there was no way back, as I felt so good. For an athlete, the best thing is that the recovery becomes faster.”
Koovit recalled that at the time he was living in London, and in the club where he trained he was one of the smallest men. “I was a little squirt there. As things started going so well for me, and I started setting Estonian records and winning medals, burly men who I’d been afraid even to talk to at first started asking me what I was doing to do so well. One after another they started trying vegan food too.”
Meat dishes tend to be highly acidic and can cause inflammation in the body, he says. “When heavy training is added to that, more and more inflammation builds up in the body. Eventually the body can’t cope with it anymore — that’s why more and more athletes in the sports world have been finding vegan food,” went on.
“Eating vegan food is very contagious, because you feel good and get the feeling that you’d like to try more. After eating, you don’t get a heavy feeling. In sporting terms, that’s the charm of it — since I can eat more often, I feed my muscles and cells more often. There are more nutrients, and through that recovery is faster too,” Koovit said. “Protein can be obtained from vegan food in concentrated form.”
The annual Veganmess food festival takes place in Tallinn this weekend.
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